So There's This Girl

Stream of consciousness musings. Hopefully this will bring me enough courage to actually ask this girl out instead of just writing about it.

So There's This Girl.

There's this girl at school who is natural. Not in the gritty, earth-loving sense, but in the sense that there is nothing fake about her. Her sense of self-worth is strong and constant, something I wish mine could be. Her creativity is something the Old Masters would envy. Her intellect and yearning for knowledge makes her a direct descendant of Athena. She has the oldest soul of anyone I know. All of this makes her more beautiful on the inside than anyone I have ever known.
Her eyes are the color of a vast, restless ocean, first blue then green then gray then back to blue again, all constantly shining with an unseen light. Her hands are soft and pearly white on the outside, but her palms are rough from the spectacular art they birthed. Freckles dot her face and arms like unexplored constellations. Her hair is wild and flowing, its dark curls bouncing ever so slightly when she walks. All of this
Makes her beautiful on the outside as well.
She is young, though. She goes to parties. She drinks, flirts, does stupid things. These aren't necessarily ugly qualities. They may hurt now, but they're all but forgotten by the time you've taken your last midterm in college.
She has a plan, anyway. What she wants to do, where she wants to be, how she wants to be there. Her dream is carefully constructed, everything pre-meditated. She will not mess it up, and she will not let rejection get in the way. Her self confidence is too strong for such trivial matters.
She both inspires and intimidates me. She inspires me by being so young and so wild, yet being so thoughtful and precise and enduring. She intimidates me by being so strong, by being so confident that her confidence eclipses mine, and I can hardly bring myself to look her in the eye, let alone ask her to Prom. Call it fear, call it courage, call it a blind leap of faith, call it whatever, but I managed to do it.
Maybe she understands. Maybe she sees that I am afraid, but of what? Of rejection? I've been rejected before. Of being laughed at? It's a personal goal to get as many to laugh as possible, and she knows it. Of not being good enough? Of not being wild enough? Of not having enough faith? All of the above?
Is that why she smiles at me? Or laughs at even the worst attempts to make a joke? Is that why sometimes, when I look out of the corner of my eye, I think I see her looking at me? Does she know that my heart was beating faster than what is considered normal, or even safe, when I was silently working up the courage to ask? Does she know that I would have danced with her all night at the Cabaret if I could have?Does she know that I want so badly to ask her out for real, but am too afraid, or realistic, or both, to think that it would work out?
I think she does. The only question is will I stop worrying enough to make this happen, if not for her then for myself. Love may be patient, but the lovers are waiting.

So there's this girl. And I need to ask her something.